The military has come up with a multitude of ways to utilize robotics, from bomb disposal and recon bots to Avatar-like surrogates . But a robot that takes its cue from squirrels and African birds to deceive its enemies is decidedly novel territory. Researchers from Georgia Tech, who are also working on a MacGyver bot with AI smarts, are making inroads into developing just such a robotic trickster. The Office of Naval Research led by Professor Ronald Arkin discovered that squirrels often deceive competing squirrels by visiting fake stash locations while their real acorn collection lies elsewhere, and have developed a robotic model that utilizes the same strategy. The programmed deceptive behavior was successful, as demonstrated in the video after the break. Another lesson from nature is from the African babbler, a species of bird that flocks and crowds around a predator wi...